The Grand National: Our greatest race, but not our best

The Grand National is about celebrating vivid humanity rather than
thoroughbred excellence, says Laura Thompson.

Today the Grand National will command the attention of much of the countryPhoto: GETTY

By Laura Thompson

7:43PM BST 08 Apr 2011

The Grand National, which will be run this afternoon, is routinely referred to as our greatest horse race, although in truth that is a bit of a nonsense. The National is a trundling, plodding handicap.

As a child, I remember watching Red Rum’s historic third victory in 1977 and asking my father if the horse would now run in the Derby. Controlling his mirth at such idiocy, my father explained that Red Rum (although actually bred to run over a mile) would – given luck in running – finish about a furlong behind the last horse in the Derby.

The Epsom Derby, described by Disraeli as the “blue riband of the Turf”, is the race against which thoroughbred excellence is measured, the two-and-a-half minute definition of horse merit. The Cheltenham Gold Cup is a rigorous test of the top-class steeplechaser.

But the Grand National is a freak event, an anomaly. It is run over an attritional distance – four and a half miles – with a giant field of 40 horses, the best of which carry absurd amounts of weight while the worst, poor darlings, are the equine equivalent of those people who run the London Marathon in a Nick Clegg mask and galoshes. Meanwhile, anyone hoping to analyse their way to a gambling success should remember that the first official winner, back in 1839, was named Lottery.

And yet the Grand National will, today, command the attention of much of the country. The fact that I – a dedicated follower of racing – will instead be watching the meeting at Thirsk on Channel 4, simply proves that it is I who am the anomaly. The National transcends the world of its sport as no other race can do. The Derby still attracts a huge crowd, but it no longer fits its description by Charles Dickens: “On Derby Day, a population rolls and surges and scrambles through the place that may be counted in millions.” A wild exaggeration, of course, yet one that conjures a sense of the nation gathered together in barely-controlled celebration – an atmosphere very much like that of the modern Grand National.

Indeed, contemporary Aintree bears a strong resemblance to Frith’s famous 1858 painting of Derby Day, with its depiction of vivid and roistering humanity. The main difference is that in Frith the women are covered up in bonnets and shawls, which is hardly the case at Aintree.

I have never seen anything quite like the way women dress at this meeting – the free-flowing cleavages, the Elastoplast miniskirts, the charred explosion of pheasant feathers perched precariously above the eye – yet this, too, is a sign of the incredible life-force of the event. I wouldn’t want to be part of it (unlike the 70,000 who do go), as I have a feeling that mingling with the Frithian crowds would require both earplugs and body armour, but I prefer their air of unabashed jollity to, say, the tightly buttoned one-upmanship of Royal Ascot.

Nevertheless, Ascot and Aintree have this in common: what they are selling to the public is increasingly separate from actual racing. In that sense, things have changed immeasurably from 150 years ago, or even 15 years ago.

Race meetings are now openly run for the non-cognoscenti, which is good for packing in the crowds, but less good for getting them interested in the sport itself. Some tracks are little more than open-air nightclubs, a place for a booze-up and a pop concert. And because of this shift in emphasis, away from what makes racing special and towards what makes it the same as everything else, a contest like the Derby – which is essentially about the pure pursuit of perfection – is in danger of being rendered irrelevant.

Thus it is that the Grand National wears the crown of our greatest race – not least because it has so little to do with what racing really is. The National is a spectacle, a blood-stirring cavalry charge. It can be won by anybody, an amateur jockey, a 100/1 shot horse. It is, above all, defiantly anti-elitist. Perhaps therein lies the secret of its success.